Angelica Duarte, Abortion Death

On November 1, 1991, 21-year-old Anjelica Duarte died of complications of a safe and legal abortion.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

October Abortion Deaths

Legal, illegal, professional, and amateur, abortion has claimed far too many women's lives over the years. Here are the women I know of whose deaths occurred in October:

Brenda Banks, Diane Boyd, Alice Corbett, Arlin della Cruz, Katherine DiDonato, Erna Fisher, Christina Goesswein, Barbara Hanson, Eleanor Haynes, L'Echelle Head, Rosie Jiminez, Giseline Lafontant, Harriet Lichtenberg, Maria Lira, Natalie Meyers, Maria Ortega, Catherine Pierce, "Tammy" Roe, Sharonda Rowe, Angela Satterfield, Carole Schaner, Deloris Smith, and Jane Ward.

Keep in mind that these are just abortion deaths where I had enough information to write up at least a sentence or two about the woman, and I could veryify that she died in October. This is not a comprehensive list of all women who lost their lives to abortion in the month of October.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Abortionist Richard Ragsdale dead

Illinois abortionist Richard Ragsdale died Saturday, October 23, from cancer.

Read this piece for an overview of Ragsdale's life and career, that included child pornography involving his own three-year-old foster daughter, along with numerous allegations of abortion malpractice.

Ragsdale was instrumental in doing damage control for the abortion industry in Illinois after the Chicago Sun-Times did their "The Abortion Profiteers" expose in the late 1970s. He successfully blocked efforts to ensure oversight of abortion practice in the state, including blocking a provision that would have required a positive pregnancy test prior to selling women abortions.

Jane Ward, Abortion Death

On October 28, 1947, 22-year-old heiress Jane Ward died of complications of a criminal abortion.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Giseline Lafontant, Abortion Death

On October 28, 1993, 25-year-old Giseline Lafontant died of complications of a safe and legal abortion performed at a New Jersey clinic.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Not exactly prochoice....

Contrary to what "prochoice" activists say, just because a guy does abortions doesn't mean he's any friend to women, or a champion of choice. Pravin Thakkar stands as an example. Three of his patients indicated that he seduced them, then forcefully aborted the resulting pregnancies.

Downi Creations

Celebrating the unique beauty of the child with Down Syndrome, Downi Creations produces dolls suitable for children, parents, medical professionals, and collectors. Help spread the word about these beautiful dolls, and the fact that any child, incliding one with Down Syndrome, is a gift from God.

Deloris Smith, RIP

On this date in 1979, Delores Smith, age 15, died of lingering complications from an abortion performed on her when she was just 14 years old. Delores was fatally injured because staff left her unattended with an anesthesia drip running while they attended to Angela Scott, a 19-year-old abortion patient who had stopped breathing in the recovery room. The girls were injured on June 2. Angela died on June 11.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Katherine DiDonato, Rest in Peace

On this date in 1936, Katherine DiDonato, mother of two, died from compications of an illegal abortion performed by Dr. Aloysius Mulholland.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Diane Boyd, Rest in Peace

On this day in 1981, 19-year-old Diane Boyd died after an abortion performed by Robert Crist.

Diane was not the last woman to die after Crist's tender ministrations. Seventeen-year-old Latatchie Veal bled to death after an abortion by Crist in 1991. Twenty-two-year-old Nichole Williams died of DIC (disseminated intravascular coagulopathy) after an abortion by Crist in 1997.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Scriptural reflections

Assorted Scriptures and Abortion

2 Chronicles 25:3 "...The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, or the children be put to death for the fathers..."

Jeremiah 7:6 "...and do not shed innocent blood in this place..."

Matthew 25:40 "...whatever you did for the least of one of these my brothers and sisters, you did for me."

Romans 12:1 "...offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God..."

1 Corinthians 10:24 "Nobody should seek for his own good, but the good of others."

James 2:26 "As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead."

1 Peter 4:9 "Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling."

Carole Schaner, Rest in Peace

On this date in 1971, Carole Schaner became the second woman in four months to bleed to death from an outpatient hysterotomy abortion performed by former criminal abortionist Dr. Jesse Ketchum. Carole left four children motherless.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Christina Goesswein, Rest in Peace

On this day in 1990, Christina Goesswein died of a botched abortion at the hands of Dr. Moshe Hachamovitch.

For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:



To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Silent No More Rally

Post-abortion women and their loved ones can start making plans to attend the Silent No More Rally this January in Washington, DC. There are also other events throughout the country.

Those of you who have not been there, done that, be prepared to counter the proabortion claim that women have only abortions that they "need" and freely choose. Read:

"Don't Like Abortions? Don't Have One!"
Being Pro-Life Will Not Protect You From Abortion
Beware of "Maternal and Fetal Indications"

For further resoursed, see:
Unwanted Abortions

Stem cell science

In Stem the Debate, columnist Julia Gorin cuts to the chase:

While the world fixates specifically on embryonic stem cells, the cells cultured from adult and umbilical cord tissue have been making all the breakthroughs — just as one questioner cited at last week's presidential debate. The embryonic stem cell controversy is as charged as it is not because of religious right-wing zealots, as proponents of the research would have us believe, but because of abortion-on-demand zealots: it's a sneak tactic to reinforce dehumanization of the embryo. But the successful right-wing-zealot spin on the debate has more than half of Republicans supporting taxpayer funding of it.

This column is spot-on!

Brit "service" arranges back-alley abortions

Making a Killing

Our disclosure ...of the links between the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) and a Spanish clinic practising illegal abortions arose from an investigation by this newspaper .... In July, Ann Furedi, the chief executive of BPAS, said: "We are able to provide women with details of clinics abroad where post-24-week abortions are permitted." In the case of Spain.... Abortion is indeed permitted by Spanish law up to full term where there is a "grave or serious threat to the physical or psychological wellbeing of the mother". But... "There is a loophole in the law . . . So if you have a normal pregnancy but still you want [an abortion], what we do is put on the paper that there was a gynaecological emergency." ..... The women who take advantage of the system established by BPAS are no doubt troubled, frightened and, in many cases, morally confused. But what BPAS advises them to do is illegal in Spain. Worse, it dehumanises the woman herself, reducing her to the status of a "client", steered cheerily towards late abortion as an easily available service rather than a horrendous last resort.... How ironic that those who campaigned most vigorously against back-street abortions have conspired to create a new, glossier but no less sinister marketplace of death.

The Abortion/Suicide Link

The post-abortion woman has a higher riks of suicide than her non-aborted counterpart.

Do "bubble zones" protect lunatics?

Abortion advocates insist that "bubble zones" are necessary around abortion facilities to protect patients and staff from violence. But Canadian abortionist Garson "Gary" Romalis was attacked and stabbed within the confines of a bubble zone. Did the absence of prolifers near Romalis facilitate the attack? Read more.

Is This the Face of the Enemy?

Feminists for Life's Question Abortion campaign cuts to the chase and asks: Is this the face of the enemy?

Study Links Abortion, Women's Violent Deaths

Post-abortion researcher David Reardon repoted that a major study of death certificates and medical records in Finland has shown that the risk of death from suicide is six times higher for women who have had an abortion compared to women who gave birth.

This finding reinforces an inadvertent finding made by the Centers for Disease Control in a study published in Public Health Reports in July of 1978. The CDC study, "Deaths After Legally Induced Abortion," found a higher number of women suffering traumatic death (accident, homicide, and suicide) in the months following their abortions than would be expected in the general population of women.

Read more

Covering Up Illegal Abortion Deaths

Abortion advocates claim that pre-legalization mortality numbers were grossly underreported. After all, they say, doctors aren't going to alert the health department when they kill a patient during the commission of a crime. What these abortion advocates don't take into account is how many other people could alert authorities to the real reason a woman died.

Criminal Abortion Deaths Uncovered



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

Alternatives to stem cells

Listening to the news lately, one would get the impression that the only hope for just about anything that ails you is fetal tissue stem cell research and organ donation -- in other words, if you're not willing to have somebody else die for your benefit, you're out of luck.

This is just a reminder that there are exciting new treatments that give new life without anybody else having to die. Check out New Life for Heart Patients.

What if Roe goes?

According to a recent AP news story, abortion would become, to varying degrees, illegal in 30 states should Roe vs. Wade be overturned.

Were this to happen -- highly unlikely, since there are enough abortion fanatics in positions of power and influence to prevent it -- watch the vultures circle, the way they did when the Hyde Amendment went into effect. They'll be looking for another Rosie Jiminez. Never mind the women who die from legal abortions. Real women don't matter to these folks, only their ideas and the hypothetical women who might die should abortion be recriminalized.

"Don't like abortions? Don't have one!"

"Don't like abortions? Don't have one." It makes a great bumper sticker slogan. If only it were that simple in real life. Abortion advocates would have us believe that all legalization did was allow those women who would have had dangerous "back alley" abortions to have "safe and legal" abortions instead. It's all supposed to be about each woman making her own choices based on her own religion, her own ethics, her own plans, her own wants. But that's not the way it has turned out in practice.

Helping former abortionists heal

The Society of Centurions was formed to help people to escape from the abortion industry and find healing and peace. Too often, the prolife movement swoops down on recent abortion industry refugees and puts them in the spotlight, forcing them to relive the horror of what they've done, without giving them a chance to do the spiritual and emotional work necessary to maintain their own lives.

Allred reminder

Edward Campell Allred is still running his behemouth Family Planning Associates Medical group, the NAF member abortion chain responsible for the deaths of Laniece Dorsey and so many other young women. Why are the lefties only opposed to "unsafe abortion" when they don't stand to make a profit from it?

5,000 to 10,000 illegal abortion deaths?

Not hardly. Anybody with a shred of honesty knows those numbers are bogus. For material to squash these absurd claims, go to The Truth of Pre-Roe Abortion Mortality.

Abortion and Suffering

Many arguments in favor of abortion assert that abortion is necessary to save the child from a life of suffering. But is this really possible?

Read Abortion, Suffering, and the Chinese Widow.

Doctors and Illegal Abortion

One of the biggest factors separating the prochoice from the prolife is how they perceive the world of illegal abortions. The prochoice see the greasy old man with a coat hanger lurking in an abandoned warehouse, plying his trade with booze on his breath and lechery in his eye. The prolife see a story substantiated by newspapers: doctors doing abortions on the sly.

A few old cases from the archive of the New York Times serve as examples of doctors entangled in abortion cases. Law enforcement was sometimes unable to tell if the doctor was indeed the guilty party who caused the woman's death, but the prevalence of physician involvement in these old abortion cases underscores the research done by Planned Parenthood and by Nancy Howell Lee: most criminal abortions were done by doctors, and most non-physicians performing illegal abortions had physician accomplices who provided support and equipment.

For more, see Doctors and the Back Alley Abortion.



For more on pre-legalization abortion, see The Bad Old Days of Abortion

To email this post to a friend, use the icon below.

What are we fighting about?

Prolifers and prochoicers tend to see one another as monsters. To the pro choice, prolifers are slavering maniacs who want to shoot doctors and who don't care if women suffer and/or die. To the pro life, prochoicers are slavering maniacs who want to puree fetuses and who don't care if women suffer and/or die.

Okay, so there seems to be an agreement that prolifers have no love lost for abortionists, and prochoicers don't lose any sleep over a dead fetus (unless it's their own wanted fetus, but that's a further entanglement). Overall, prolifers don't have the well being of abortionists at the head of their list of concerns, and prochoicers don't have the well being of fetuses at the head of their list of concerns. That's agreed. So let's set that aside for a moment.

We still have each side of the abortion battle equally convinced that the other side considers women to be expendable cannon fodder in the Culture War. How have we developed a social battle in which each side is convinced that they alone stand for the rights, safety, lives, and well being of the very same group of people?

Prochoicers have a legitimate concern. It's not easy to confront the bodies of women who died from criminal abortions or self-induced abortions and not want to do something to prevent further carnage. But likewise, prolifers have a legitimate concern. They, too, see the bodies of women dead from botched abortions and want to prevent further carnage.

So here are two groups of people. Each wants to prevent the same tragedy: the woman lying in a pool of blood, abandoned to die of a botched abortion. So why are they at each others' throats?

My son says it's because "the world is full of stupid people." Well, each side sees it that way. The prochoicers believe that if those pig headed prolifers would just leave abortion legal and allow the pro choice movement to police its own, there would be no problem. The prolifers wonder why the pig headed prochoicers are so upset over Geraldine Santoro, who's been dead over 30 years, and so indifferent to women who are dying now.

When you get concerned individual pro life and pro choice people together, and get them to drop their preconceptions and rhetoric, there is a lot of agreement. Abortion should be subject to at the very least the same supervision as, say, any other gynecological surgery. Quacks should not be permitted to practice abortion. Special vulnerabilities of women contemplating abortion should be taken into account when abortion practice is being supervised.

If we agree on so much, why are we fighting so much?

I have seen no evidence of a huge contingent of people who look at the practices of the likes of Bruce Steir (rhymes with "fear") with great contentment and satisfaction. Most people I've communicated with, when presented with Steir's history, roundly condemn him. And there is no big pro life/pro choice split on the matter. There are a few pro choice people (very loud and conspicuous ones) who seem to worship the ground Steir walks upon, and who consider him a hero on a par with Albert Schweitzer. There are a few pro life people (very loud and conspicuous ones) who seem to think the only legitimate use for Steir is for target practice. The vast majority of people, however, seem to have no use for the likes of Steir and believe that he should be given a nice little locked room in which to contemplate his crimes.

So who is the enemy here? Why can't we join forces and lock up the Steirs? Why aren't we working together on the vast areas of agreement? Why aren't pro life and pro choice people working together to eliminate unwanted abortion? To lock up dangerous quack abortionists? To try to make sure that the women who are, indeed, dead set on abortion actually survive (be it to celebrate their freedom or to repent their sins)?

I could say, "If I had the answer to that, I'd be rich." God knows I have plenty of other things I'd love to be doing with my time besides wrestling with people I agree with.

The Fruits of Roe vs. Wade

Death was puttering around in the shadows until January 23, 1973, when a bunch of black-robed men decided to invite him in the front door. Let's look at some of the fruits of the Roe vs. Wade decision unleashing unfettered abortion in the United States.

We can start with the direct impact on women. Roe was supposed to put an end to the scarred, maimed, and dead women. But if you look at the abortion mortality numbers for the 20th century, you'll see that all Roe did was stop public health officials from making any real effort to tally the casualties of abortion. After all, the dead and maimed women were no longer crime victims; they were merely disgruntled purchasers of a legal "service."

First, let's look at pre-Roe abortion statistics:The Truth of Pre-Roe Abortion Mortality.Abortion deaths were plummeting before legalization. From 1940 to 1945, there was roughly a 50% drop in abortion deaths, thanks to the development of antibiotics. Then from 1945 to 1950 came a tremendous drop, with abortion mortality falling to roughly a third of the previous tally.
What came after 1970? According to the Centers for Disease Control, by 1972 the total abortion death toll (legal, illegal, miscarriage and unknown) was down to 90. The number of dead women counted annually continued to fall, reaching a recorded low of 10 from all abortions (legal, illegal, miscarriages and unknown) of 10 in 1990.

There are two things these numbers fail to tell you:
* How many women really died
* What kinds of deaths these women suffered.

If you look at studies of pre-legalization abortion mortality, you'll find that no stone was left unturned to uncover abortion deaths. After all, a death from an induced abortion was the death of a crime victim. Law enforcement, medical examiners and coroners, funeral directors, health care providers, government officials, and the press were all very interested in induced abortion mortality. It is unlikely, in a time when an anonymous tip could lead to a woman's body being exhumed for autopsy, that many induced abortion deaths went unnoticed and uncounted.

Enter Roe vs. Wade. Abortion was no longer a crime; it was a consumer "service." Law enforcement was no longer interested. Since there was no longer the promise of a spectacular and sordid trial, interest flagged in the press. Coroners, medical examiners, and funeral directors were no longer required to bring apparent abortion deaths to anybody's attention. Doctors and hospitals who glossed over the cause of death were no longer committing a crime. And government health officials were being stymied by lawsuits declaring that any information having to do with abortion was privileged information that a physician could refuse to disclose to anybody.

Abortion mortality research done prior to Roe found that the official numbers were very much in keeping with the number of deaths uncovered in an intense investigative effort. But research after legalization found that deaths were routinely overlooked by the very people charged with keeping track of abortion mortality.

"Oh, really?" you may ask. Yes, really. Behold:
* What California Found
* What Minnesota Found



Before legalization, two studies involving law enforcement, state agencies, coroners and medical examiners, hospitals and doctors, found no significant difference between the official number of abortion deaths, and the number of abortion deaths that were likely to have really occurred in the United States if their in-depth research was finding more abortion deaths. But after legalization, just one researcher operating out-of-pocket found at least 56 percent more abortion deaths than were officially being reported. Clearly, one of the things Roe accomplished was giving abortionists someplace discreet to bury their dead.

Still skeptical? Then consider this one piece of anecdotal evidence that I think clinches it. In 1991, abortionist Robert Crist sent a 17-year-old Black abortion patient, Latachie Veal, home to bleed to death. Crist openly discussed this death at the 1992 National Abortion Federation Risk Management Seminar in Dallas. Present at that seminar were two -- count 'em, two -- members of the Centers for Disease Control team charged with tracking abortion morbidity and mortality: Stanley Henshaw and Lisa Koonin. Koonin, in fact, was the very employee charged with the task of "verifying" abortion deaths and obtaining death certificates so that other staff could begin the process of investigating and classifying the deaths.

Crist's discussion of Latachie's death was not by any means the only way it could have been brought to the attention of the Centers for Disease Control. Latachie's family filed suit, retaining the flamboyant "Racehorse" Haynes to represent them. The death and ensuing lawsuit were covered extensively by the news media not only in Texas, where Latachie died, but also in Missouri, where Crist had previously been responsible for the death of a 19-year-old developmentally disabled rape victim brought to him for an abortion. Prolife organizations quickly picked up the story and it was disseminated throughout the country in newsletters.
CDC abortion mortality data for 1991 counted no deaths of Black women in the 15-19 age range whatsoever. Latachie Veal's death -- discussed by the abortionist responsible at a seminar attended by two CDC staffers, highly publicized in two states, and trumpeted in prolife newsletters nationwide -- went utterly unnoticed by those responsible for keeping track of abortion mortality in the United States. How, if they were oblivious of Latachie's death, could CDC staffers be expected to notice abortion deaths that were being hushed up by those involved?

Clearly, then, claims that Roe reduced abortion deaths ring hollow. At best, Roe had no impact at all, merely substituting legal abortion deaths for criminal abortion deaths. What is more likely, though, is that Roe simply made it easier to hide abortion deaths even as the number of dead women began to climb with the skyrocketing abortion rate.

And what of the way women died? Surely legalization at least made for an easier death, right? Doubtful. Consider these:
* Jammie Garcia, whose fetus was pushed into her bowel, causing her digestive fluids to back up into her lungs.
* Carolina Gutierrez, who lost limbs to sepsis before finally leaving two small children orphaned.
* Marla Cardamone, whose mother described her thus: "There was my beautiful daughter so horribly disfigured that she was almost unrecognizable. A tube was still protruding from her mouth and I could see that her teeth and gums were covered with blood. Her eyes were half opened and the whites of her eyes were a dark yellow. Her face was swollen and discolored a deep purple."

No improvement here. The only "improvement," if you can call it that, is that none of the abortionists involved faced criminal charges for these deaths. In fact, it is so rare for an abortionist to be held legally responsible for killing a woman on the abortion table that the very fact that he's facing charges -- not the fact that the woman died a horrible death -- is what makes the case newsworthy.

If there's been no improvement on the mortality front, neither has there been an improvement in morbidity (injuries). Women are still left with injuries that can leave them infertile, or lead to hysterectomy or colostomy. Women are still left incapacitated. Not all of the patients who have amputations because of sepsis die. (When I was working at Life Dynamics, I spoke to two prolifers who were providing support to women who had lost limbs to abortion sepsis; one had lost her right leg, the other had lost both feet and both lower arms.) So we have not only the continued horrible deaths, but the accumulation of the wounded, some of whom languish for years in long-term care facilities before they finally die, as did Suzanne Logan.

And let's not forget the children. As abortionists became more bold, they took to doing riskier, later and later abortions, sometimes maiming rather than killing the fetus. Blindness, mental retardation, missing limbs, and cerebral palsy are some of the repercussions innocent children have suffered as a result of the carte-blanc Roe gave to abortionists.

These are just the direct effects of legalizing abortion. The indirect effects -- grieving post-abortion women, skyrocketing breast cancer rates among young women, the dramatic increase in child abuse and abandonment, violence against women who refuse to exercise this "right," chaos on once-quiet streets, abortionists who once feared only the law but who now fear for their lives -- could fill volumes.

Anybody who looks at Roe vs. Wade and sees reason to celebrate has a lot of explaining to do.